Originally posted by gregggreg I've searched through this thread and this forum trying to find an answer to this exact question and haven't found it. I apologize in advance if this has been answered already.

I have pretty much the most simple DTivo setup currently. I have one round 18" dual LNB dish on my roof. Two lines come down my house and into my one DTivo with dual tuners. That's it.

I am thinking of going HD once the HD DTivo comes out. Right now I am just thinking about replacing my current DTivo with the HD DTivo.

Here are my assumptions so far from trying to grok all of the vast amounts of wonderful data in this forum:

1) I have to get a new oval sat dish to replace my current round 18" dish
2) I can run two lines (the same two I already have running from the current dish to my living room) from a 4x4 multiswitch (built into the dish?) to new HD Dtivo in my living room, therefore not having to run any new lines.

Are these assumptions correct? I'm pretty sure I'll be able to replace my current dish with a new dish and I am trying to avoid having to run more lines from my roof to my living room here. I've seen many posts similar to this, but most mention many lines, multiple receivers, multiswitches, and much more complicated setups than that I have.

Yes, that's all you need to do... replace the dish; the Phase III 3-LNB dish has a multiswitch built-in, and you'll just move the coax lines going into your house over to the new dish, then just hook up the DirecTV HD DVR in place of the DirecTV DVR you're using now.

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Thanks to this thread I was able to preorder the new HD DirecTiVo. I've read that D* may require an additional year of programming commitment when existing customers (like me) activate new equipment. Will the same be true of my new HD DirecTiVo (when I get it)? I don't have a problem with it, but seems like we should get something in exchange for an additional year of commitment (other than getting activated). I've already got a triple-LNB, HD D* box, etc.

Originally posted by gimp Thanks to this thread I was able to preorder the new HD DirecTiVo. I've read that D* may require an additional year of programming commitment when existing customers (like me) activate new equipment. Will the same be true of my new HD DirecTiVo (when I get it)? I don't have a problem with it, but seems like we should get something in exchange for an additional year of commitment (other than getting activated). I've already got a triple-LNB, HD D* box, etc.

Good question - I've been wondering this too, so I'm going to ask it in a new thread to see if we can get a complete answer...

Originally posted by llogan All of your statements are correct, are you going to hook an antenna up to your HDTivo? If so, it'll be a little different.

I might hook up an anntena eventually. How does that change it? Does the anntena have to be on the roof? I live in San Francisco proper and I *almost* have line of sight to Sutro Tower where almost all of the HD channels are broadcast from (about 2 miles away). If I have to put an anntena on the roof and run another line from there to get OTA HD, I might just skip it. I don't watch much major network TV anyway. HD PBS would be cool though.

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Need some input from someone who has an understanding of how the tuners in the HD Tivo will be set up. I'm in a mid-rise condo, and the building system is set up so that the HD satellite feed and the rooftop OTA antenna come in on the same coax.

I feed that into the "satellite" input on my Hughes HIRD E-86, and then select "Local in 2" on the local menu, and that works fine -- no splitter required on the back, as the Hughes splits out the OTA internally.

Does anyone know if the new unit will work the same way, or if I'll need a splitter? I know I may miss the dual tuner feature for the satellite feed, but I would like to have it for the OTA feed.

Any insight anyone has on this would be helpful as I think about configuration.

Originally posted by gregggreg I might hook up an anntena eventually. How does that change it? Does the anntena have to be on the roof? I live in San Francisco proper and I *almost* have line of sight to Sutro Tower where almost all of the HD channels are broadcast from (about 2 miles away). If I have to put an anntena on the roof and run another line from there to get OTA HD, I might just skip it. I don't watch much major network TV anyway. HD PBS would be cool though.

Being that close I would think you could use rabbit ears and get reception. I hear the Zenith silver sensor is a really good indoor antenna that would definatley work for you. The only thing is I doubt you would get NBC 11 since it is now in San Jose.

Originally posted by paulj I don't believe so. I guess I know where to go to get an early pickup!

paul

I've placed work with Solectron in the past and their MO is to ramp in Mexico to get it right, then go to higher quantity runs in Asia. On the other hand, plants actually compete for projects, so manufacturing over the long-term may stay in Mexico if they can compete at the higher volumes.

Originally posted by MitsHD Need some input from someone who has an understanding of how the tuners in the HD Tivo will be set up. I'm in a mid-rise condo, and the building system is set up so that the HD satellite feed and the rooftop OTA antenna come in on the same coax.

I feed that into the "satellite" input on my Hughes HIRD E-86, and then select "Local in 2" on the local menu, and that works fine -- no splitter required on the back, as the Hughes splits out the OTA internally.

Does anyone know if the new unit will work the same way, or if I'll need a splitter? I know I may miss the dual tuner feature for the satellite feed, but I would like to have it for the OTA feed.

Any insight anyone has on this would be helpful as I think about configuration.

The HD-DVR250 has a separate coax input for the off-air signal, so you will need your di-plexer to separate the signals.

Good news is the HD-DVR250 splits the OTA signal to support the dual OTA ATSC tuners.

Of course the final question on an OpenCable TiVo box. Since cable co's are the primary members, as are Motorola and SA. One has to wonder if they will shut TiVo out...At least in the short term to get a head start.

This is the HDTV TiVo forum. I assume you want to get your local channels in HDTV?

Enter you ZIP code here and click on the colors to see what size antenna you need. Then look at the beginning of this FAQ. If you are in a house, you can put a rooftop or attic-mounted Channel Master and get good recption for ~$50.

Originally posted by feldon23 Sorry but you're full of crap. They cannot deliver an HDTiVo for $1,000 with an encoder and why the hell would anyone who wants to watch fuzzy crappy analog channels buy a $1,000 HDTV TiVo?

I assure you that I am very sincere. It's called an all-in-one box. Some programming is only available on cable and/or analog OTA. Why force me to use a VCR or purchase a standalone unit to record the shows I want to watch? If given the choice, I would purchase the product that I found most useful. The tuners are already there, they just need to add an encoder chip.

Originally posted by emunro The tuners are already there, they just need to add an encoder chip.

If I'm not mistaken, the tuners are NOT already there. The only tuners it has are satellite tuners and ATSC tuners. Not analog NTSC tuners. If you are saying you want a product that is like the HD-Tivo and SD standalone combined (add an SD tuner and encoder), then the cost add would probably be similar to the differential price between a stand-alone TiVo and a standard DirecTiVo (a couple hundred dollars). But the market that would want something like that is VERY small. By year end, DirecTV will be able to provide over 93% of the market with local channels via satellite... developing such a box for 7% just doesn't make good business sense. ESPECIALLY when a very small percentage of that 7% even has HD (they never combined the SD TiVo with the SD DirecTivo, so the chances here are even slimmer). I know that doesn't help you, but that's just the way it is.

I just don't think you're going to have any option beyond two devices (like an HD-TiVo and an SD stand-alone TiVo), unless and until your local cable company provides you with a better option.

A hardware realtime MPEG-2 encoder is not $1000 but it IS one of the major components in the price of standalone TiVos which start at $200.

An HDTiVo with a single analog tuner/input would cost an additional $50-100 AND would dramatically increase the complexity of the software development and program guide info. How is the TiVo supposed to know what is on that analog input?

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So Feldon, now that we are all about to add more DTivos to our households (my 'old' Hughes is headed to the bedroom), have you seen any new stacker solutions that will allow us to truly stack 3-LNB signals on a single strand of coax? A Super-Duper-Stacker?

If such a solution actually exists, I don't envy you in creating the graphic;-)

Thanks Feldon!

B

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If it doesn't have discrete codes for EVERYTHING, don't buy it!